Deportees deserve a safe arrival
Whether you passionately support or oppose President Donald Trump’s expanded deportation policy, we should all agree that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency ought to always deport those deemed to be here illegally to safe places in their native countries.
That humane standard seems to be in danger, judging from two recent cases of Mexican nationals deported — or, in one case, scheduled to be deported — from Painesville, Ohio, to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
This is happening while the U.S. State Department warns Americans to avoid the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, including Nuevo Laredo, as a dangerous place controlled by drug cartels.
ICE apparently didn’t read that warning, or didn’t care.
Former Painesville resident Francisco Narciso wound up in a nightmare of kidnap-for-ransom after ICE agents deposited him in Nuevo Laredo Tuesday, July 25.
Narciso found himself in ICE custody after he was injured in a June car accident in Mentor.
According to Narciso’s girlfriend, he was kidnapped for ransom almost immediately after arriving in Nuevo Laredo, then starved and beaten until his U.S. girlfriend paid a ransom of nearly $4,000. She told Plain Dealer reporter Michael Sangiacomo she would have sent more but for U.S. restrictions on such wire transfers.
After Narciso was released Sunday, he told his girlfriend he was held with a number of other U.S. deportees, including another man from Painesville, as well families with children.
In the second case, a frightened husband has been waiting in Nuevo Laredo for his wife, Beatriz Morelos Casillas, who was scheduled to be deported on Tuesday but — as of Wednesday — hadn’t shown up in the city, which lies across the Rio Grande River from Laredo, Texas.
Morelos Casillas’ current status could not be ascertained and her lawyer Elizabeth Ford did not return a phone call.
Dumping deportees in perilous cities must not continue. Beyond the bodily danger to those put in these circumstances — and the financial cost to their families to purchase their freedom from drug lords — such policies inevitably strengthen Mexican drug gangs.
Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for ICE, emailed a statement that said “detainees are maintained in safe, secure and humane environments while in agency custody,” but didn’t answer follow-up questions about how ICE makes decisions about where to leave deportees.
Immigrants wrongly in the United States who ignore previous deportation orders, as Narciso and Morelos Casillas apparently did, have few legal rights. Immigration lawyer David Leopold, who does not represent either of these deportees, said that such undocumented immigrants can ask for a hearing to determine if they have a credible fear of returning their native country, but they can’t ask to be sent to a different city.
Yet will such a hearing be held if requested? ICE didn’t clarify but Sangiacomo’s reporting raises questions.
Morelos Casillas’ lawyer appealed her case, asking for a stay of the deportation order or that ICE choose another city besides Nuevo Laredo. However, the mother of four apparently was whisked away before the appeal could be heard.
U.S. officials need to ensure that deportees have an appropriate opportunity to challenge their deportations on safety grounds. And clearly, ICE shouldn’t dump deportees in cities or regions that are dangerous.